The Screen
by Animack
Summary: When Gumball's idea for a use of the schools new giant foot ball screen gets turned into a prank, things go from quite well to quite not well. And Darwin has been caught up in the middle of this annoying circle, and he has to fix this mess himself, as the two main people involved in said stupid circle seemingly find ways to make it worse and worse. (Comedy)
1. Chapter 1

It was normal 12:00 lunch for most at Elmore Jr. High. Rocky was serving, Leslie and the girls were gossiping at their table, the bullies were throwing food at other peoples tables, Carrie was wondering why she was even at lunch in the first place, and Gumball and Darwin were eating lunch at their own table. Well, to be fair, Darwin was the only one to be eating. Gumball, on the other hand, seemed more inclined to explode from drinking 50 cups of black coffee than take a single bite of what was on his plate, of which appeared to be masquerading as some form of jellified burrito. "Why are you so jittery all of the sudden?" Darwin asked with an eyebrow raised. "Ican'twaitforthefootballgamethisafternoon!" Gumball quickly exclaimed. "Why?" Darwin asked in a confused tone, "You don't even know how to play football." Gumball suddenly changed from hyperactive to condescending, "Oh Darwin, silly Darwin, silly, silly, silly Darwin, of course I know how to football works," Gumball claimed in a confident tone. "Really? Then how do you play?" Darwin asked with a hint of annoyance. "That's easy. When the goalie hits the cue ball with the racket through the quarter zo- yeah, I have no idea what a football is," Gumball admitted dejectedly, "I'll tell you why I'm excited if you can keep a secret." Darwin quickly screamed, "A secret? Tell me, tell me, tell me!" Darwin inched his face closer to Gumball, grinning in the creepiest way possible. "Okay, so you know how the school board chose to use that money for books and supplies to buy that huge TV screen for the score board?" "Yeah, why?" "Well, I was able to get the instructions for how to play a slide show on it from Mr. Smalls," said a proud Gumball. "Really, he just gave them to you?" Darwin asked with amazement. "Yeah!" "I just asked and he gave them to me."

**2 hours ago**

"Please Mr. Smalls, c'mon." Gumball pleaded. "For the last time Gumball, I won't give you the instructions." Mr. Smalls said sternly while closing his office door. Sighing, he slid open his cabinet to get a paper when, out of nowhere, Gumball's head popped out, "Please!" "AHH!" Mr. Small kicked the drawer shut and turned the cabinet around to face the wall. Sighing for the second time, he sat down and started to drink out of his mug when, also for the second time, Gumball's head popped out of the mug. "Please" "WHAAA!" The mug was promptly thrown out the window. After calming down, Mr. Smalls felt quite tired. This was most likely caused by his new earth energy diet providing no nutritional value what so ever. As he leaned back and yawned, Gumball's head popped out one last time, albeit, out of Mr. Smalls' mouth. "Please!" "MPFFFF!" Mr. Smalls fell out of his chair, causing Gumball to pop out of his mouth. Mr. Smalls, now cowering in the corner, held up the manual, "TAKE IT, JUST TAKE IT AND LEAVE! "Thanks!" Gumball then joyfully skipped out of the room.

**Present**

"So what are you going to use for anyway?" Darwin asked. "Oh, um, yeah about that," Gumball said nervously, "I was going to make a message for Penny, you know, when she was on the field with the cheer leaders." "Ooo, I want to help," Darwin said in a surprisingly happy tone. "You don't have a problem with it?" Gumball asked in a shocked tone. "Nope, after Anias reminded me that since we're brothers who live together, have class together, and pretty much still do everything together, I got over it." Darwin said matter-of-factly. "So what you're saying is you _were_ acting crazy." Gumball said in a dead-pan tone. "Yep!" said a cheerful Darwin. Gumball just shook his head, "Okay, so I was thinking of…"

While this was all happening, a table nearby was currently seating Tobias and Banana Joe, of whom had just heard the entirety of Gumball and Darwin's conversation. "You know Joe; this gives me an idea for the ultimate prank." Tobias said deviously. "Really, what?" he asked. "Oh my squishy, yellow friend, I don't even think you can comprehend the greatness of this prank, but I will still tell," Tobias said in the most stuck up way possible. "After school, we wait for Gumball to set up whatever stupid slide show he's going to make, and then change it to something that will embarrass him." Tobias whispered evilly, "This prank will be talked about for centuries." "I don't know, I mean, what if we get caught?" Joe worriedly asked. "That's the best part, we can't get caught. Since Gumball will openly admit to making the slide show before showing it, we will effectively change our finger prints to Gumball's own prints" he said excitedly. "Oh-kay!" was all that Joe said. "You didn't understand a word of it did you?" "No" Joe said shamefully. Tobias pinched his forehead, "Just follow my lead." "Yeah, ok, but how are we going to get the instructions? Gumball has them." Joe asked, still slightly confused. Tobias simply stated, "Unlike him, I'm not an idiot. We can just look up the manual on the internet."

**3:00 PM**

Tobias and Joe were just walking out of the library, having just printed out the instructions. "Whelp, I have to get to Biology, see ya later Joe," Tobias said as he walked straight into Ms. Simian, spelling a full cup what appeared to be either coffee or tar. Tobias just looked straight ahead in fear. "1 Hour detention after school!" she screamed. "No, bu-!" Tobias tried to interject, but Ms. Simian immediately interrupted, "Be quiet or it'll be 2 hours! Just be thankful I'm letting you out right before the game starts." She then walked off angrily. Tobias, in a moment of panic, handed the instructions to Joe, "You'll have to do it for me, just follow these. Read them 100 times over if you have to." He said, still panicking, "Just remember, this is a prank, not an attack. Make it something that it will just embarrass Gumball, not ruin his life, got it? I don't like it when my conscience takes over and I feel guilt." Joe made a dumb salute and said, "I got it, Commander!" and walked off. Tobias could feel the dread wash over him, or he just felt the still hot coffee still on his face.


	2. Chapter 2

"So, are how are you going to set this up?" Darwin asked. Gumball and Darwin had just gotten out of class for the day and were currently on a library computer setting up the slide show. "Let's see here, first you click this, type this… and there!" Darwin tilted his head, "It says you agreed to receive emails from 20 different facial care websites." Gumball looked down at the manual, "Ohhhh,I see. I have no idea what any of this means." Gumball tried to think of something and looked around the room. "Aha!" He ran to his sister, Anais, who was looking through a book concerning the different forms of existence found in literature, "Hey, Anais. Think you could help your big, always nice, caring, thoughtful brother? Pleeeaaase." Deciding it would be easier to get it over with quickly, she answered with a simple grunt, "Fine." Gumball grabbed her by the ear and ran back to Darwin and the computer. He plopped her in front of the screen, gave here the manual, along with what he wanted in the slide show. As she looked at the manual, she couldn't help but ask, "You can and want to put something on that big screen by using a computer in here?" Gumball answered, "From what I could get from the pictures, yes."

**20 minutes later**

"There, finished. To start the slide show just use the 3rd app on this," she took out a new, expensive ZamZung Phone. "Wow, how did you get this?" Darwin asked in amazement. "Mom said I was responsible enough to have one." Gumball was getting ready to make an angry comment, but instead said, "Eh, she's probably right. Anyway, Thanks!" As the two started to walk out, Anais called them with a cheerful smile, "Hey, if anything happens to that phone, I'll slowly feed you to our turtle, limb by limb." Gumball and Darwin stood with their mouths hanging. "Bye!" Anais said nothing more and walked out. Unbeknownst to them, Banana Joe walked out from behind a book shelf. Having actually read the instructions 100 times, he was ready to get to work. He jumped up to the computer and cracked what little knuckles he had.

**4:45 PM**

"Times up, get out, NOW!" Tobias quickly ran out of the classroom and headed for the field. As the game was about to start, the bleachers outside were already packed with people. After nudging past many a strange creature, he sat down next to Banana Joe. "So, did you change it?" he asked. "Yep! Did exactly what you said to do. Read the instructions 100 times, and made it purely embarrassing. Nothing more, nothing less." Tobias, slightly shocked, replied back, "Oh, well, good job." He started to get excited, "Dude, I'm going to be in the history books for this!" "What about me?" Tobias made an annoyed face, "Okay, you'll be with me in the history books, on the side."

**Half way into the game**

As it was Half-time, the cheer leaders came out and began their routine. Tobias was looking around, trying to spot Gumball. He quickly turned to the ground near the score board, where he saw Gumball positioning a large ladder. Tobias couldn't wait, "So, what did you make the slide show say?" Banana Joe grinned from, well, because of his body shape, from cheek to cheek, "I thought long and short about, and I came to a realization. Since the message was supposed to not be embarrassing in the first place," Tobias nodded, "I simply the reversed the entire meaning of the slide show!" Tobias frowned, realizing the prank might not be as grand as he had hoped. He groaned, "What was the slide show originally about anyway?" Banana Joe made a grossed out face, "It was some really sappy love letter thing to Penny." Tobias just said, "Oh" After a couple seconds of thought later, his face changed from being excited to being horrified. He had just made his own realization. If Banana Joe reversed the meaning of the slide show, and it was supposed to be an love letter to Penny, then that meant…, "Oh, no." was all he could muster when he, and everyone at the game heard a loud, "PENNY!" Penny, who was currently at the top of a pyramid formation, looked up at the screen confused, "Gumball?" Gumball was standing up on the screen, with a phone raised above his head. "Now, watch!" He pressed a button, wide grin still on his face. A large wall of text appeared saying, "**PENNY, I DO HATE YOU. YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A BIG FREAK. I WAS ONLY AROUND YOU BECAUSE YOU ATTRACTED ATTENTION. YOU DO LOOK HORIBLE, AND I AM DISGUSTED EVERY TIME EI HAVE TO LOOK AT YOU. PEOPLE DON'T LIKE YOU FOR YOUR PERSONALITY, THEY'RE JUST AFRAID OF YOU. YOU'RE A PIG, AND I WOULD LIKE IT IF YOU WOULD STAY AWAY FROM ME. I HOPE I NEVER SEE YOUR HORRID FACE AGAIN." **The entire field was silent for a few minutes, but it felt like hours. Penny started tearing up, and jumped off of the pyramid, causing everyone else in the pyramid to fall, and ran to the locker room sobbing. Gumball out either shock or confusion, most likely both, stood in the exact same position atop the screen, wide grin and all, and just stood there. Clouds appeared out of nowhere and it started to rain. A football was thrown at Gumball, knocking him off the screen, face first into the mud, still stuck in the same position.


	3. Chapter 3

Everyone at the game just stood still in awkward silence. As about 25/26 of the people there didn't know who this Gumball kid was anyway, they just slowly left the field. The game was being canceled because of the rain. Tobias, as one of the 1/26 of people who did care about what had just happened, felt guilt creeping up on him. Hating the feeling, he decided to confess to the prank, and let everything just go back to normal. He would just tell Penny what he did and she would understand, and probably turn into and dragon and roast him… He decided he had meddled enough, and went home.

**Locker room**

"Come on Penny, get out of the locker." Leslie and Carrie had followed the sobbing to a locker in the back of the room, and were attempting to comfort Penny. Leslie slowly opened the locker. Sitting inside was a Penny in a small white spirt form. Carrie tried comforting, "Hey Penny, come out, it'll be, um, fine, maybe?" "You're not very good at this." Carrie fumed, "Like you're any better!" Penny interrupted them both, "Stop fighting, there's no point. You heard what he said. I'm just an ugly monster." Carrie tried to comfort one more time, "Well, right now, you basically have no features." She started to cry harder. "You're on your own." Carrie floated through the ceiling. "Penny, you know Gumball would never say that, he probably just messed something up and wasn't thinking." Penny thought about this. She hopped out of the locker and transformed back into her normal form. "You know what, you're right." Leslie breathed out in relief. "He just needs to be taught a lesson. "WHA-?!" Leslie began coughing hysterically. "He knows how sensitive I am. For him to let something like that happen… He must just not care." Leslie had regained composure, "That's not what I me-!" Penny interrupted, "No Leslie say no more, I'm past him now." "How can a message be so badly misinterpreted?!" "Thanks Leslie, I needed that," She then stormed out. Leslie could only silently cry, knowing this was going in the worst direction possible.

**Waterson residence**

"GUMBALL TRISTOPHER WATERSON, YOU WILL GO TO YOUR ROOM RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" Gumball had just been through a thorough scolding session. To say his Mom wasn't pleased with him would be an understatement. Gumball just walked up to his room in complete despair and lay on his bunk. Darwin followed shortly after. "Hey Gumball. How are you fe-," Darwin was startled by a torrent of tears shooting out of Gumballs eyes, said tears going straight through the ceiling. After a couple of minutes, the tears had finally stopped. Darwin tried talking a second time, "How are you feeling?" Gumball spoke through snotty sobs, "I can't believe she didn't like it. She probably felt embarrassed and hates me now!" He kept sobbing. Darwin interjected, "Well, yeah, duh. You put some nasty stuff in there." Gumball immediately stopped crying and sat up looking offended, "Hey! I put a lot of work into that!" "Wow, you must really hate her, what da ya know." Now Gumball felt like he had just skipped 3 scenes of a movie, "What do you mean; you remember what I put in that?" It was Darwin's turn to be confused, "Don't you remember what it said on the screen?" "Dude, I was on top of it. How could I have seen what it said? And what did it say!" Darwin backed up and looked fairly nervous, "Um, well you see, it kinda said…" "WHAAAAAAT!" "CRASH!" Darwin sighed, "There went our window. Again." Gumball began to panic, "What am I gonna do? What am I going to do?" Darwin thought about it for a second, "You know, she probably realized this was a misunderstanding pretty quickly. I mean, she is your girlfriend. She should know the many different forms of failure you exhibit." Completely undeterred by the insult he confidently said, "I'll just go to her and tell her that wasn't supposed to happen, and we laugh it off." "Okay, good night." "Night buddy." Darwin slept peacefully, knowing that he wouldn't be spending his week fixing some stupid mess, as this was going in the best direction possible.


	4. Chapter 4

**Ms. Simian's classroom**

As per the usual, the room was filled with loud conversation. The conversations didn't have much in the way of variety, though. Almost all pertained to the recent event at the football game. The conversations could be dived into three equal segments: The people who think Gumball should burn, the people who are sympathetic towards Gumball and believe this is just a misunderstanding, and most importantly, the people who wonder why there are three clearly defined groups to begin with, as these things happen to Gumball every day. The main subject of these conversations was currently walking up to Penny. "Hi Penny," he said nervously. "You know that wh-," he was unexpectedly slapped by Penny. "Gumball, you need to learn that actions have consequences," she said this with a high amount of salt. "RIIIIIIING" "I'll be going," she walked away with the rest of the students. Darwin walked over to Gumball, "Oh c'mon! He's in shock again? Gah!" He picked Gumball up by his arms and dragged him out to lunch.

**Lunchroom**

"I can't believe it," Gumball slowly chewed his hamburger, not really knowing where to go from there. Darwin tried chiming in, "Well, even if you didn't mean, that still hurt her, she probably just needs some time a-," "OF COURSE!" Darwin was so startled by the sudden outburst that he fell right off his seat, along with the rest of his lunch. Now picking spaghetti out of his gills, he forced himself to ask, "What?" Gumball started to wright things down, "You're right Darwin, I haven't given her enough time with me!" "Wait, what?" I mean, I went straight home after that fiasco and only just now decided to talk to her." Darwin got up, "No, no that's not- Oh who cares, go ahead." He walked out to go clean himself off. Gumball went back to writing things down. He just had to try everything he could think of to win her back.

**Sports montage in B Minor**

First, Gumball tried giving Penny some chocolates. This resulted in him going to the nurse with covered in a shell of melted chocolate. Next, he tried complementing as hard as he could during cheerleader practice. He now knows that pom-poms taste surprisingly like licorice. Flowers? Went straight through the window. A card? It made for some nice origami paper. A giant mural? There was now a new exit in to the parking lot. He had one idea left, and it would have to work.

**Outside the library**

Gumball's last chance would be an old fashioned serenade. He had gotten a guitar from the music room, and walked up behind Penny and tapped her shoulder. "Oh, Pen-," before he could get one lyric out, Penny garbed the guitar, smashed it to pieces, turned into a dragon and lit it on fire, and finally, threw the ashes at Gumball's face "Penny, really? You know I didn't write that." Gumball said in as stern of a voice as he could with Penny. He sounded like a child begging. "Gumball, I've told you already. You really hurt me. So now I don't want to see your face again! Go away!" she stormed into the library. Someone who was watching this act of screaming called out to Darwin, who was in another hallway, "Hey, Darwin, he's frozen again." "Ugh, again?" He went into his locker and got out a wagon

**Library**

Leslie was sitting at a table doing a research paper when Penny came to the table with a book and sat down beside him. "Hi Penny, you okay?" he said nervously, having heard of her resent "rejections" to Gumball." Penny, who was reading a book as furiously as one can, sternly said, "I'm Fine." Leslie still wary, mumbled, "Good, good." Distracted, he dropped his pencil under the table. As he bent down to pick it up, he suddenly became disgusted. Sitting back up, he started rambling, "I can't believe some people. I mean, there's an entire layer of it. Why can't people just take their gum, ball it up, and throw it away?" Finishing his rant, he turned to Penny for her response. What he saw, though, was her sitting with her face flat on the table, crying. Thinking back to what could have caused this, he smacked himself. "I said the trigger word, shouldn't have said that, why did I say that why did I…?" he mumbled. Looking back at Penny, he smiled, trying to seem as sincere as possible, and asked, "What's wrong?" Penny raised her head, "I ruined everything!" "Really?" "How?" Penny raised her head once more, "You heard what Gumball said, I'm sure he didn't write any of that, I over reacted!" Leslie responded sarcastically, "Less over reacting, more over attacking." Still sobbing, she said, "I mean, when I first slapped him, it already felt horrible, but I just kept going." Leslie thought about this for a bit, "I'm sorry Penny, but I have nothing to say about that. That was just plain out of character. But I'm sure Gum-," "I am a monster!" Penny turned into a pig and ran out of the library, knocking over people and objects as she went. "She is seriously self-conscious." Still, he decided to just let her be. These things tend to work themselves out. It would be fine by tomorrow. He was sure of it.

**Ms. Simians class, the next day**

It was not fine. It had gotten worse. Out of shame, Penny and Gumball were employing extravagant measures to stay out of each other's line of sight. This included sitting at opposite ends of the room, using multiple mirrors to refract light and make themselves near invisible and building walls around themselves using textbooks. Ms. Simian would usually stop this nonsense, but since this was apparently causing the Watterson boy pain, she let it slide. What she would not allow was the fish and flower laying their heads on their desks to sleep. "You two!" she screeched, "Go outside and splash some water on your faces! I won't have students sleeping before I bore them!" After leaving the room, Darwin decided to try some small talk, "So, why'd the sand man visit you?" Splashing some water on his face, Leslie responded, "Penny's dad made me have an impromptu "Sleepover"." Darwin became confused, "That still doesn't explain why you've not slept." Leslie, still half asleep even after splashing water on his face, explained, "She was crying so much that they decided they needed a family member her age to help. When I came over they locked me in her room with her by barricading the door. She just kept transforming into different things, each with their own cries. Every time I could put push the sound to the back of my mind, a new one would pop up." He shuddered, "What about you?" "Gumball was also crying. You probably knew that." Still groggy, he kept going, "He just kept crying, and crying and crying. I got so annoyed that I shoved his head inside my fish bowl." Leslie simply said, "So I'm guessing that didn't work? "No, it reverberated off of the fish bowl and made it louder." Darwin suddenly grabbed Leslie, "We need to fix this." Leslie, now a bit scared, tried responding, "Okay, but how?" Darwin smiled manically, "We'll need help, and I know just who to ask."


	5. Chapter 5

**Carrie's House**

"For this plan to work we're gonna have to be precise and secretive." Darwin had assembled the group of various creatures he needed to carry out his scheme. First, there was Leslie, of course. Second was Carrie. The third and fourth were Alan and Carmen. The reason these three agreed? Carrie was willing to help a friend, and felt as if she was being outmatched in acting depressed by Gumball and Penny. Alan will stare at the sun if someone said it would help, and Carmen followed. "Not that I don't like houses that feel like they want my soul or anything," Leslie nervously stammered, "but why are we here? Along with that, why are we keeping this a secret anyway?" Darwin, of which normally got a full 8 hours of sleep, angrily grunted, "Because every time one of those two tries anything, things fall in on themselves! If we just keep them out of this, they can't ruin the plan." Alan still slightly confused, had a question, "I will still help, as that is one's truly greatest duty in life, but why are me and Carmen here?" Luckily for Darwin, Carmen actually had thought about this beforehand, "We have been in a similar position, multiple times." She pondered on this, "All of those were caused by Gumball, now that I think about it." Carrie, wanting to get a move on, spoke aloud, "Darwin, just tell us what we're doing." Happy to finally be getting somewhere, he handed each one of them a sheet of paper, "On this piece of paper is your role in this plan. Read it as many times as you can." Leslie questioned, "If you were just going to give us some paper, why did you call us here?" Darwin scratched the back of his head/body, "I wanted to feel like I was in a spy movie. Heh, heh." After deciding this had gotten a bit awkward, he pushed attention back to the plan, "Carrie, the first part of the plan is on you. It'll start tomorrow, at the end of school"

**Tomorrow, at the end of school, in Ms. Simian's classroom**

"RIIIIIING" Having read over her part of the plan one last time, Carrie rose up and floated over to Gumball's desk, "Hey Gumball." Gumball, still in an unending state of pathetic depression, wearily responded, "Hi Carrie." Realizing that making conversation was pointless, she got to the point, "You know that new street vender that opened up near here? You know, the one that apparently sells the best street taco's in the world?" Gumball wasn't exactly interested in the conversation, "No." Carrie, slightly shocked by how deadpan it was, continued, "Oh, well, still, I was wondering if I could, oh I don't know, borrow your body and go get one?" She tried her best to make a pleading smile. Gumball sighed, "No, Carrie. I don't plan on going into compulsive eating depression; I plan on writing bad poetry." Carrie floated back a bit, "Okay then, you brought this upon yourself." Gumball, now confused, raised his head, "What are you talking abo-!" Carrie had just shot into his head, through his ear. "AAUGH!" Gumball jumped out his desk and began thrashing on the floor, "I didn't even know you could enter thro-!" Carrie had taken over. After getting used to breathing again, she left the room in the fastest way possible. Out the window.

**Penny's house's front door**

Leslie read over his note again, "This isn't go to work. But I'm kind of afraid of what Darwin will do to me if I don't." He shivered, remembering what happened when he first questioned Darwin's plan, "Never again." Before he could even reach out for the doorbell, Penny's dad threw the door open, "Oh hi Leslie glad you could come!" Leslie was now scared, "How did you know I was here?" Patrick quickly responded, "Doesn't matter. Now come in and talk to Penny." He grabbed Leslie by the pot and ran up the stairs. Before Leslie could utter another word, he was thrown into Penny's room. He heard the door slam shut behind him, along with what sounded like wooden planks being nailed in to form a barricade. Wincing, he turned his focus to the heap on the bead. The heap was the first to respond, "Oh, hi Leslie." "Sniff" "Why did you come here?" Leslie remembered what stupid idea the note had told him, and stammered, "I came to help. I think. Well, what I'm trying to say is that you should move on. Gumball has." He braced for a wail from the heap. "Really?" the heap cried. "Yeah, apparently he even took someone with him." Then something came out of left field for the potted plant. She got straight out of bed, turning a dark shade of green, and ran up to Leslie's face. "What! WHO?" she growled. Leslie slowly backed up in fear. He tried to remember what the note said, and said the first name that popped into his head, "Um, I think it was, um, well, Carrie." He cowered. "THAT UNDEAD EMO FREAK IS DOING WHAT WITH MY GUMBALL!" screeched an un-characteristically furious Penny, now sporting jagged teeth. She immediately ran through the door, blasting it open, and sending the eavesdropping father flying to the end of the hallway. After regaining his composure, Leslie went out the open doorway and ran to the mall.

**Mall cafeteria**

Darwin watched with wonder as Alan and Carmen set up the table. The two of them had just caused the mall cafeteria to be near vacant by using multiple misleading sale signs. Along with that, they also had somehow set up a huge light display above the table, along with huge box of confetti. As they were finishing the table, Carmen, who wasn't being nearly as diligent as Alan, asked, "Why are we setting this up in the mall again, why not a restaurant?" Since things were going smoothly so far, Darwin was able to calmly state, "Since we consist of 12 and 13 year olds, we can't afford anything really. Why else would the food on the table consist of sandwiches and ice cream?" Carmen just shrugged. A couple minutes later, and the job was complete. "Ah, it makes so happy that the effort we make will spread love through the world." Alan said this in such a way that anyone in a 2 mile radius suddenly felt like creating a charity drive. "Carmen, it only took us but a short time to complete this task. What if we spend all day doing this for everyone?" he spoke inspirationally. Carmen just said, "Okay!" "Grab onto my string, and we will go to help the greater good!" She grabbed onto said string, and they floated off. Darwin was off buying a drink when he noticed this, and decided to start running because of it. "Where are you going? What if something goes wrong? I don't know how this stuff works!" he screamed. Alan answered, albeit; as he was floating away, "Don't worry! Just plug in those two cables! It'll be fine!" Darwin turned around and noticed the two incredibly long cables. He grabbed them and ran to his look out spot, a fashion boutique across from the cafeteria. He hid behind a window mannequin and waited for the last pieces of his chess game of a plan to arrive.

**1 hour later**

Darwin was starting to nod off when he heard a crash. Some kind of disgusting cat creature had just tripped into a table. Realizing this was Carrie, he waved like a mad man. Noticing this, Carrie (still in Gumball's body, of course) nodded. She sat in one of the two chairs at the decorated table, flew out of Gumball, and quickly teleported over to behind the mannequin with Darwin. "Good, you made it in ti- why does he have taco meat and salsa on him!" Carrie blushed and started stammering, "Uh, details, details, he's here alright! What more do you expect of me?" Darwin just pressed his fin to his forehead. Some more time passed. Carrie and Darwin were playing a card game when Leslie showed up. "Leslie you're here! Where's Penny?" Darwin said starting to panic. "Don't worry, don't worry. She's coming. For some reason she ran here. I took the bus." "Oh, wanna play a card game?" More time passed. Gumball had finally begun to wake up, "Ugh, my head. Why do I have taco meat on me? And how'd I get to the mall?" Before he could question any more, a green creature landed next to him, startling him so much that he nearly fell out of his chair. "AAHH! DON'T EAT ME! I TASTE LIKE A BAD TACO!" The creature screamed back, "WHERE IS SHE!" Gumball, who wasn't expecting that, opened his eyes. "Penny?" Penny screeched once more, "I SAID, WHERE IS SHE!" Gumball cowered in his seat, "Who? What are you talking about?" Having finally lost some steam, Penny turned a normal shade of orange and responded in a calmer tone, "You know what I'm talking about, Carrie." Gumball sat up, "Oh, you must be confused. It's more that Carrie forced me to the mall." Penny's anger turned to confusion, "Come again?" "She wanted some taco or something. I said no and she forced herself into me through my ear. Then I just ended up here. Still trying to figure that part out actually. Why would you care about what a jerk like me would do anyway," Gumball was depressed once more. Penny, on the other hand, was now incredibly flustered. She lowered her head in embarrassment and quietly spoke, "Oh. I was just, you know, wanting to know why, maybe, um, would you mind if I took a seat in that other chair?" Gumball didn't expect this, for some reason. He simply said, "Sure." Meanwhile, the group of watchers was commentating on the silly soap opera. "Why did you say my name?!" Carrie looked like she was about send the poor flower to limbo. "I'm sorry! It was the first thing that came to my head!" Darwin, on the other hand, was currently crying tears of joy. "Finally, it's almost over! This stupid circle of a problem is going to end, and I can sleep!" Before that could happen, though, Leslie noticed something strange up in the sky light, "Is it just me, or is the sky turning a menacing shade of red?" Darwin looked up, "Yeah, you're right. And I feel the ground starting to rumble." Leslie turned to Gumball and Penny, "Darwin, you plugged in those two wires, right?" Darwin looked down, "No. Why?" Leslie suddenly got a bit scared, "Those lights above those two are starting to glow." Carrie somehow turned an even paler shade of white, "That's actually happening." Darwin turned back, "What's happening?" Carrie grabbed the two of them, "We need to go, now!" She flew to the back of the store and huddled behind the purchase table. Back at the table, the two nervous junior high students were oblivious to what was happening around them, as they were distracted for obvious reasons. Penny was the first to speak up, "Gumball, I just wanted to say I was sor-." "BOOOOOOOOOOM!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Mall Cafeteria (Which, for the sake of the story, will be located on the first floor)**

"BOOOM!" A large, thunderous sound echoed across the entire mall. "Why did that happen?" Darwin was pancaking at this point. "Are we being invaded?!" Carrie violently shook him, "No, but we need to go see what happened." She grabbed the two boys and zoomed out of the shop and to the cafeteria. What they saw was, in essence, a complete lack of destruction. The explosion that had just occurred had about as much force as a bag of fire crackers, as all that was damaged was the lights. The most that had happened at the table was the displacement of decorations. Penny was on the floor groaning, as the loud noise had scared the absolute, well, you get the idea. Gumball had seemingly vanished. The earth began to rumble even more violently. Darwin helped Penny up, "What happened? Where's Gumball?" He suddenly stopped moving and thought about the past week. He lowered his eyelids, "This wasn't you two roleplaying as the great king and queen of drama again, was it?" "That wasn't us!" she yelled defensively. "We were starting to have a nice have a nice conversation, and then it kinda blew up, for some reason. It spooked me out of my chair, but for some reason it looked like Gumball was sent flying by it." Carrie expression became even more worried, "Where? Which direction?" She started running over to a video store near the cafeteria, "I saw him fly in there!" As they walked into the store, they noticed a peculiar oddity inside. There was a Gumball shaped whole in the wall leading outside. The group looked outside the whole, where there was still no sign of gumball. Darwin had noticed something, though, "Isn't this a straight path to the school?" Carrie, immediately after hearing this, flew straight through the wall and started heading down said path to school. Deciding they didn't really have much in the way of options, the rest of the group ran after her. The sky had turned an even deeper shade of red, and cracks were starting to appear on the road. "Carrie, what's happening? What happened to Gumball? Why are we running to the school?" Penny asked, having finally caught up with the ghost girl. She turned to Darwin and Leslie, "Also, why were you there?" Carrie interrupted this, "Not important!" Gathering her thoughts, she started to explain, "Ever since I started having an actual parental figure in my house my free time outside of the place has been limited. As a result, I began exploring the place, and found the really old library with all these different books on strange theories and the occult." She was interrupted by the road in front of them breaking away and rising a good 5 feet in the air. "Great, now we have to take the slightly longer route." They turned down a different street, and the explaining continued, "Well, I found this book talking about how the universe doesn't take change well, and too sudden of a change can mess it up. I didn't really pay much attention to the theory, at least, until now anyway." Leslie barged in with his question, "What *huff does this *huff* have to do with *huff* Penny and Gumball anyway?" Carrie answered that question in a grave tone, "Things in Elmore don't tend to change very often. The combination of Penny both coming out of her shell and Gumball and Penny dating must have put a large strain on the universe as a whole. But with the resent event at that game happening so close to those changes must have thrown everything out of balance." Everything now made sense to Darwin, sort of. "Is that why Gumball was acting weirdly confident? I mean, he tried going up to Penny around four or five times. The Gumball I grew up with would have given up after the first rejection." Leslie also now understood, "That's *huff* why Penny *huff* was acting so *huff* out of character." Carrie now had her own question, "Darwin, just to be sure, it wasn't you who came up with that stupid idea for the screen, right?" Darwin turned to her, "Nope. That was all Gumball. Why?" Carrie gulped. "Yeah, the end of that theory I just talked about said that if something caused the universe to become unbalanced," her voice became even more stilted, "then it would sort of erase the main instigator of the change." Penny expression became horrified and screeched, "IT WOULD DO WHAT?!" She turned into a cheetah and ran ahead at a lightning speed. When she came to an intersection, she began to turn. Yet, for some strange reason unknown to her she just kept sailing forward, and into a house. She groaned as she ripped her head out of someone's bed room. As she raised her hand to her forehead to try and regain her composure, she noticed something odd. Her head felt quite hard, and brittle. She looked down at her hand, and in turn, the rest of her body. She confusedly stammered, "Wha... why am I in my shell?!" The others had caught up with her. "How did that happen?" Darwin exclaimed in confusion. Carrie's book ex machina of course had an answer, "See? The universe has no idea what to do with you." The earth suddenly started going into a high magnitude of earthquake. "We can't focus on this now, we need to hurry!"

**The Middle School**

After a long series of visual gags that would have been funny if this author were an animator, the band if idiots arrived at the school. Stopping in front of the doors to catch his breath, Darwin asked a question, "Carrie, I'm going to guess that Gumball is at that stupid, good for nothing screen?" Carrie nodded, "Yep, he's probably being sucked into the thing." Darwin perked up, "Why'd you think that?" Carrie phased through the door, "It'll be flashy. Now pick your selves up and move it! The fastest way to the field is through the school." As they ran through, Leslie noticed something wasn't happening, "Why is it that nothing is really happening here? All that's changed is every window being broken." Darwin was the one to respond, surprisingly, "When you look back on it, other than the library, which is not on our path, the only destruction that actually happens here is to the windows." After just a few more door bursts, they were outside. Darwin's eyes shot to the screen. There he saw, as expected, Gumball hanging on the lower part of the screen, hanging on for dear life. "GUMBALL, YOU OKAY?!" Gumball respond with an eloquent, "OHWHYAUGHHEHLAHHHWHATOWWWWSWEETCORNCORNEL!" Darwin looked back, "Whew, he's fine." Penny, on the other hand, was logically panicking, "Uh, ah, what do we do? If we get close to it we would just get sucked in. How…?" That was when she saw something that gave her a mostly proof plan. She saw that the ladder from earlier that week was still behind the score board. She began barking orders to the others, "The three of you! Go set up that ladder. I'll be back soon!" She ran off into the gym. The group shrugged. A plan was still sort of kind of better than no plan. As they set up the ladder (Which I will have you, the readers, know is in fact, **not **a step ladder), a somewhat harsh realization hit them. Although it wasn't being sucked into the screen, winds were still raging on. Only one person could climb up this ladder at a time. Along with that, Carrie was too light. If she got any closer the screen, she would just pop right into it. They finally saw Penny running up to them, with what appeared to be a long climbing rope wrapped around her arm. Leslie sighed, "Ohhh, I see what's she's doing." Carrie took this time to explain to her what the situation with the ladder was. "Oh…," Penny sighed, "Well, I think I should do it. This is all my fau-." Darwin interrupted Penny and started pushing her up the ladder, "Yes we get it. This was your entire fault. You hurt him yadda yadda yadda. Now get a move on!" She slowly climbed until she reached the top of the screen. She pulled her head over the screen and looked down, "Gumball!" Gumball looked up, "Penny! You have an idea right? And why are you in your shell?" Penny started to swing the end of the rope with metal attached to it, "No time to explain! I'm gonna throw this so it'll swing towards you! Get ready!" She threw the rope. It sailed at a near perfect trajectory. Gumball braced himself, "Cmon, cmon cmon. YES!" He had caught in his right paw. As he released his left from the screen, physics happened. The small peanut creature playing tug of war with an interdimensional portal suddenly noticed these physics. "Oh no." She and Gumball were immediately sucked into the screen. The screen suddenly turned back to normal. Darwin let go of the ladder and ran to face the screen, "GUMBALL!"


End file.
